No doubt, I am entirely capable of keeping up with the copious readings that come with especially intensive graduate school work. However, it seems the entirety of my commute and "free" time have been utterly and completely relinquished to the tasking of reading custom bound course texts. This is of course, not to mention the moderate amount of writing assignments to accompany these readings in the form of reflections, outlines of the readings, and journal entries. It is not specifically the amount of work that is taxing, but the rate at which it is expected to be executed. In the past two days, I have been expected to create two (thorough and comprehensive - 5 pgs each) outlines based on text, two journal entries, an autobiographical essay in addition to about 100 pages of reading.
Let me be clear. I am not complaining. However taxing of tasks these may be, I signed up for this and fully intend to see it through. These assignments are for my benefit and I am acutely aware of this. While I will not vocalize my venting to the instructor in class, others choose to do so, as they very well may. However, yesterday, the instruction gave us the snide comment, "welcome to grad school." Overall, I am gleaning a lot from her instruction, but I can see how a comment like that might come across and ridiculous and condescending to my peers, some of whom have advanced degrees and have completed post-doctorate work. To the post-docs especially, it's almost humorous. In actuality, I'm not really concerned about it, but just found it funny that someone of significantly lower formal academic accomplishment would venture such a snide remark to such a diverse group.
Aside from any negative aspects, training is interesting. Day by day, I feel like I'm getting a tool here for classroom management, a tool there for instructional design. I am also somewhat sleep deprived and mentally taxed, so any typos or grammatical errrors are purely an artifact of those facts.
As I have been so busy, I am not able to fully articulate my thoughts just yet, but I figured it would be best to post something within the first few days of training. Needless to say, I look forward to the weekend, but am definitely learning useful information during training.
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2 comments:
Well, to play devil's advocate. I don't think that having advanced degrees makes you a great pedagogue. It's like street smarts versus book smarts but more for a classroom setting.
I can understand the awkwardness of her remark but to be honest, I don't care if you're Stephen Hawking. Just because you have these publications and degrees under your belt doesn't mean squat your first week in an urban classroom.
I completely agree. You can have several advanced degrees and be a complete moron- in fact I've met a few. I just think a more tactful tone would have been more respectful and professional. Her comment was in response to a complaint about the amount of reading being assigned.
Otherwise, she seems to be pretty informed as an educator. I don't want to paint her as an awful instructor. Some people in the class are actually quite tedious to deal with, so I can to her frustration. It's been somewhat of a tumultuous first week overall.
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